SpaceX rocket launches on resupply mission

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has blasted off, launching the cargo-laden Dragon capsule into Earth's orbit on its way to the International Space Station for NASA's first privately run supply mission.

The engine fires traced a bright trail across the night sky over NASA's Kennedy Space Centre at Cape Canaveral, Florida, the site of many launches into space after the lift-off at 8.35pm on Sunday (10.35am AEDST on Monday).

Dragon, carrying about 455 kilograms of supplies, is set to reach the ISS on Wednesday, where it will spend about two weeks. This is the first of 12 planned missions in the US firm's $US1.6 billion contract with NASA.

A 71-second exposure as seen from Port Canaveral.

"Everything worked well, the weather stayed good - that was the one concern," aerospace consultant Jeff Foust, editor of The Space Review, said.

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"I think this is the first time the Falcon 9 has launched on the very first attempt," he added, recalling that one launch attempt for a previous mission in May had to be aborted just as it was meant to take off.

"Clearly they're getting a more mature system there that is working very well," Mr Foust said from Cape Canaveral, where he observed the launch.

People watch as a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket attached to the cargo-only capsule called Dragon is raised into launch position.

SpaceX's May mission, a nearly flawless test flight to the orbiting outpost, was a nine-day trip to deliver cargo to the $US100 billion orbiting station - the first time a commercial outfit had sent its own capsule there and back.

Although the equipment and software are largely the same this time, SpaceX said the launch was hardly routine.

"Every time we fly, we learn something," SpaceX president Gwynne Shotwell said in a news conference on Saturday.

SpaceX, owned by billionaire Paypal co-founder Elon Musk, is one of several private companies working with the US space agency to send flights to and from the ISS. NASA has been relying on Russian spacecraft for the past year, after retiring its fleet of shuttles.

The mission is the next step in American efforts to commercialise the space industry, in hopes of reducing costs and spreading them among a wider group than governments alone.

Dragon is scheduled to return to Earth - splashing down off the coast of southern California - on October 28, carrying about 330 kilograms of scientific tests and results.

So far, SpaceX has only sent unmanned flights into orbit, but the company aims to send a manned flight within the next three or four years. It is under a separate contract with NASA to refine the capsule so that it can carry a crew.